Zowan said he could, and Cam handed him a note pad and pen.
As Zowan sat down on the rock and began to draw, Cam put on the gray leather walking shoes Rudy’d supplied with the scrubs. Then he examined the other things that had been slipped in under the clothing: compass with clinometer and small laser range finder designed to connect to the BlackBerry; a tiny computer with miniature keyboard and flip up screen; several packets of light-duty explosives; a half dozen smoke grenades, and . . . ah. There was the reason for the duffle bag instead of the pack: Rudy had supplied Cam with an assault rifle, a dozen clips of ammunition, and a good two dozen hefty packages of C-4. No wonder the bag had been heavy. He frowned at it all, filled with foreboding. What need had he of all this just to look around?
His eye caught upon a corner of paper sticking out from among the blocks of explosive. It was a handwritten note from Rudy:
I fear the mission is unraveling out of my control. Do what seems best to you. And trust no one but God.
Cam stood up slowly, reading the note repeatedly, more alarmed than ever. The mission was unraveling? What did that mean? Was he already compromised? No. Rudy would have called him off if that were so. Wouldn’t he? Then what was this stuff about “trust no one but God” and “Do what seems best to you”?
“I can’t do it,” Zowan exclaimed in despair, breaking into Cam’s frantic ruminations. “It’s too complicated. They’re not all on the same level, and I don’t know how to draw it in a way that keeps them all straight. Plus I have no idea how to draw the way out of the pump room.”
Cam reached for the pad and flipped through the several pages that Zowan had marked on. He was right; it was a chaotic jumble. “I guess I’ll have to wing it, then,” Cam said, closing the pad and tucking it back into the duffle. What in the world are you doing here, God? He zipped up the bag, looped its handle-straps over his shoulder, then tossed his shorts, shirt, and shoes into the corner.
As he started down into the mine’s twisting passage, Zowan said, “Maybe I’ll come with you, after all.” When Cam turned to him in surprise, he shrugged. “I have to know what happened to Parthos and Terra. Maybe I can help them.”
“Fair enough,” Cam said, stepping aside. “You want to lead?”
They descended swiftly through twisting passages to the crawl tube, where, not surprisingly, the metal drum and plate were still in place. Cam went through the tube first, kicking the drum away from the hole with his feet, then sliding out into the dimly lit pump room. As Zowan scrambled out after him, Cam waited tensely for the Nephilim to make contact again.
Sure enough, there came the rushing wind of voices, then the imperious commands to come and free them. After the initial onslaught, though, when he didn’t respond, they backed off.
Only then did he realize one of the voices was actually Zowan, muttering at his side. “I can’t, Andros. I don’t know where you are.”
Cam laid a hand on his shoulder. “Zowan?”
Zowan blinked up at him, disoriented by Cam’s intrusion. “It’s my friend Andros,” he said finally. “He needs my help.”
“Andros?” That was the name Poe had given to one of the clones in his conversation with Gen in the viewing gallery—when Gen had rebuked him for thinking the clones were persons. “Isn’t he the dead one?”
Zowan’s gaze skewered him with sudden intensity. “How do you know of Andros? Is he in the zig?”
“I heard some people talking about him the other night. Who is he?”
The young man’s intensity bled away. “He is my friend. They put him in the Cube last week because he wouldn’t say the Affirmation, and it killed him. Or so they said. I think he might be in the secret lab, though, because he keeps calling to me, asking me to come and free him.”
“How do you know it’s Andros?”
Zowan frowned. “I’m not sure. Maybe because he says I owe him. And I do.”
“Does he say where he is?”
“No. Only I should come and free him.”
Cam exhaled grimly. “Listen, whoever’s speaking to you, it’s not Andros. Are there more voices than just his?”
Zowan’s frown deepened as his gaze turned inward. “I don’t know.It didn’t seem like it.” He paused. “But if it’s not Andros, who is it?”
“A vicious and violent monster you do not under any circumstances want to free,” Cam said firmly. He turned to the plate and drum. “Help me push these back in place and we’ll get going.”
He soon saw why Zowan had despaired of drawing him a map of the pump room. For a time, Cam feared they might never get out of it, as the kid kept leading them to dead ends. Eventually, though, he found his way and they passed through a series of dark, cramped rooms and narrow walkways to a corridor that was not only taller and wider than the others, but the first with walls finished in painted concrete.
Zowan informed him they were now in one of the Enclave’s main corridors and offered to take him down to the central commons. Cam followed him downward, increasingly aware of the unnerving press of rock and earth around him as panicky memories quivered in the backstage of his mind. At least the Nephilim’s vague whispers had subsided, almost as if they’d lost interest or fallen asleep. He knew they’d be back but appreciated the reprieve.
“Here we are,” Zowan said finally, stopping behind a pillared doorway.
Cam peered around him into what looked like a miniature shopping mall, its central island of trees, bushes, and gurgling stream positioned crosswise to their vantage, its vaulted ceiling startlingly higher than anything Cam had yet encountered. Beyond it stood several doors that Zowan identified as entrances to the library, the cafeteria, the public meeting room, and the Star Garden. “The Sanctuary’s up there,” he said, gesturing leftward to where a small court at the island’s end lay at the foot of a narrow ramp.
Cam pointed to the high mirrored panel running the length of the mall’s far wall just under the vaulted ceiling. “What’s behind that?”
“Father’s wives.”
Father’s wives? He was about to ask if Zowan had ever seen any of them, but two figures in cowled gray robes emerged from a door to their right and strode toward them. Cam and Zowan flattened themselves against the wall as the robed ones walked by, their voices carrying clearly in the night silence. Cam recognized both.
“We can’t let the Saudis down here, for crying out loud,” Fred Slattery protested indignantly. “That would be insane!”
“You’re way too suspicious, Fred,” said Gen Viascola. “With a billion dollars on the line, why wouldn’t they want to see what they’re buying?”
“They have the videos! Why do they need to see the things face-to-face?”
“You can put anything you want on a video. . . .”
As they moved down the mall their words grew muffled and indiscernible. Cam glanced at Zowan and mouthed, “Elders?”
When Zowan nodded, Cam stepped to the opposite side of their corridor and peered around the edge, watching the pair ascend the ramp. As soon as they disappeared into the Sanctuary, Cam hurried after them, Zowan in his wake. At the frosted-glass doors atop the ramp, he paused to listen and, hearing nothing, cautiously pulled one open. Giving the chamber behind it a quick scan and finding no one, he slipped inside.
Like the rest of the Enclave, the Sanctuary was surprisingly small, and cramped—except for the altar up front, where the ceiling soared to twice the height it was at the back of the room. Sounds from the right side of the sanctum drew his attention to a small door at the head of the side aisle, but then breath hissed against his teeth as his gaze snapped back to the altar, realization having caught up to what his eyes had just shown him.
Raised upright and fastened to the altar wall was a great golden sarcophagus at least twenty feet tall, gleaming in the focused light of a single ceiling lamp. As Cam approached to study it, though, he realized it was only a likeness cast in gold. The real ones must be somewhere else.
“This is one of the arks,?
?? Zowan said, coming up beside him.
“The things you said carry all the seeds? For restoring the ruined earth?”
“Yes.” Zowan snorted bitterly. “I guess they aren’t so precious after all.”
“Where are they? The other ones? And how many do you have?”
“They’re under safeguard deep in the Enclave’s bosom.” More than that, Zowan didn’t know. “I think only the High Elders would know such a thing. The arks are regarded as too precious for everyone to know where they are.”
Cam asked, “Were those two who just passed us High Elders?”
When Zowan nodded, Cam hurried to the side door he’ d assumed Gen and Slattery had passed through earlier. Hearing nothing beyond it, he was about to press the door’s activation pad when Zowan did it for him. “You might set off an alarm. They’re keyed to the palms of Father and the Elders.”
The door opened without an alarm going off, and they followed the short hall beyond to a small, dark chamber where a heavy wooden wardrobe full of gray and white robes lurked against one wall. The two who had entered were not in the chamber, but the closed door beside the wardrobe, with its adjacent palm panel and retinal scanner, gave Cam a good idea where they’d gone.
He stepped to the wardrobe and began sorting through the robes, for he’ d seen at once they’d make a far better disguise than his tan scrubs. Finding one that looked like a good fit, he donned it, then handed a second one over to Zowan.
“Let’s head on back to the library and see if we can find some kind of map.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Lacey turned away from the elevator, hugging herself in the penthouse’s chill dry air, numb with shock. How could this be happening? Where was God when she needed Him? Here she was just starting to think about coming back to Him, just starting to think she might be able to trust Him after all—and now this!
She began to hyperventilate, half gasping, half sobbing, falling to pieces right there in his entryway. Get a grip, girl. You can’t just melt into a puddle. You have to find a way out. . . .
Find a way out. The objective quenched her burgeoning hysteria and got her thinking again. Drawing a deep breath, she dashed away her tears and took stock.
As the topmost level of the Institute’s ziggurat-mimicking architecture, the entire two floors were given over to Swain’s private living quarters, and the entry alcove soared through both stories. To her left the great stone stairway curved up to a softly lit loft, while straight ahead, tastefully lit screens and vines sectioned off the private spaces of his abode, all of them steeped in darkness. She’ d start there.
But though she went through every room—study, bedroom, bathroom—and in each one found doors and windows leading outside, she could open none of them. And when, in desperation, she tried to break one, the glass refused to shatter. The place was locked up as securely as any prison.
She thought of hiding in wait for someone to come but realized she was probably being watched, and what was she going to do? Go after the guard with a stapler? Even if he wasn’t forewarned, she’d never be able to overcome him. But you could try.
Maybe there was something better upstairs.
Ascending the great stair to the loft, she found an expanse of cream-colored carpeting bounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling windows—walls of darkness gilt with the reflections of the interior lighting. Ancient Aztecan stone artifacts mingled with Babylonian treasures, each lit by its own ceiling lamp. Around them stood low, wood-framed Santa Fean couches, end tables, and chairs. In the far northwest corner, where the two window walls came together, stood a leather-and-wicker table set with fresh flowers and two place settings, also spotlighted by a ceiling lamp.
The only interior wall on the entire level ran halfway along the south perimeter. It was hung with huge acrylic abstracts echoing the Aztec and Babylonian motifs, interspersed with a series of inset niches displaying pieces of lighted blown-glass artwork.
An elevator in the far southeast corner was the only exit besides the stairs. Fighting a horrible sense that she was truly trapped, Lacey wandered among the artifacts, noting a curved wooden scepter leaning against one of the freestanding friezes; a spear adorned with eagle feathers mounted across another; a stone-headed club; a massive sword, accompanied by armor that could only fit a giant. . . .
Suddenly the lights went out, enshrouding her in darkness broken only by the intermittent flashes of lightning over the mountains. This must be the 12:11 blackout! When she was to leave her room to meet Mallory. When she didn’t show up at the pickup point, they’d know Swain had intercepted her. Suddenly she recalled the RFID chip beneath her shoulder blade, and hope flooded her. Knowing where she was, Cam would come for her.
Shortly the lights came back on, and she continued her stroll through Swain’s peculiar museum, buoyed by new hope, startling at every little sound in the hope it was her dashing spy, coming to rescue her. But no one came.
At length, she stood before the south wall, examining the blown-glass pieces in their niches, many of which doubled as terrariums for a creepy collection of venomous spiders and snakes: black widows, brown recluse, rattlers, sidewinders, coral snakes, a cobra, and others she did not recognize. All had been genetically enhanced, some with bioluminescent scales, others with featherlike crests or vestigial legs. One rattler even had an intriguing double-helix design running up its back rather than the usual diamond shapes.
“Did you know that some snake venom is regarded as an elixir of life?”
She yipped at Swain’s voice sounding suddenly at her back, and whipped around from the red-edged glass bowl she’ d been examining.
Swain smiled down at her. “That one’s my death adder. Lovely little thing, isn’t she?”
Lacey looked at it again, the serpent’s flat triangular head lying on the sand near its tail, which cut off abruptly from about three inches in diameter to only a quarter inch.
“Unlike other snakes, it doesn’t stalk its victims,” Swain told her as he came up beside her, “but buries itself in the sand, head near its tail. Then it lifts up that skinny end and wiggles it around to attract the mouse or bird. . . .”
“Lovely,” Lacey remarked, not even trying to repress her shudder.
She moved away from him to the next container, aware that he’ d turned to stare at her with an unnerving glitter in his eyes. As she forced herself to look at him, he shook his head as if in awe. “You’re thirty-three years old, yet you have the skin of an eight-year-old. Did you know that?”
She blushed furiously, thinking it was creepy being compared to an eight-year-old.
“I’m glad you’re letting your hair grow out,” he went on, still staring. “I was so disappointed when you arrived with all those lovely locks shorn. Women should have long hair. And yours is especially luscious.”
This is getting weirder by the moment.
He turned away from the niches, gesturing toward the little table set for two across the room. “Would you join me for dessert? The view up here is striking at night.”
He turned down the lights as she slid into the leather seat, and a servant appeared at her side as if he’ d popped up from the floor. He set a plate of chocolate mousse on the service plate before her, then placed a napkin in her lap. A second man appeared with a bottle of wine, filling her glass and Swain’s.
Lacey picked up her spoon; Swain sat sipping his wine and watching her. Admiring her preadolescent skin, perhaps? Oh, God, please! Get me out of here!
Beyond the south-facing window at his back, lightning flickered in the bellies of the thunderheads over the mountains.
Swain set down his wineglass and picked up his spoon. “Tell me, Lacey, do you believe aliens exist?”
Her attention returned to him in surprise. “Aliens?”
“Beings from other planets.” He slid his spoon slowly into the mousse. “Do you believe it’s possible they exist?”
“I guess.”
“What if you found out that
they did? How would you fit that into your belief system? I mean, did Jesus die for them, too?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” He ate a spoonful of mousse.
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
“You really don’t know what you believe, do you?”
“I believe the Bible.”
“Ah. Good. You believe that rebellious teenagers should be executed, then. And that your God takes delight in smashing babies upon rocks.”
“What?”
“Psalm 137:9.”
“That can’t be right.”
“Yes. No doubt I’m taking it out of context.” He shook his head.
“You’ve never heard of that verse before, have you? You claim to believe the Bible, yet you don’t seem to know much about what it says.”
“I believe Jesus died for me on the cross. That’s enough.”
He smiled thinly. “If that was enough, why did God waste His time writing a two-thousand-page book? He could’ve just used a business card with John 3:16 on it.”
He was mocking her. Playing with her. Showing her what a fool she was . . . Punishment for trying to run out on him, perhaps?
“You sure aren’t doing much of a job explaining to me what you believe. You are not at all a match for Dr. Reinhardt, in this regard. He’ d be very disappointed in your performance here. In fact, he will never be truly interested in you if you’re not as fanatical about all this Bible stuff as he is. You do know that, don’t you?” He paused to languidly scoop up more of the mousse and slide it into his mouth, savoring before he swallowed.
She had no idea how to respond. He was deliberately doing everything he could to distress her. Why? Did he want her to fight back? Or was he just trying to show her who had the upper hand?
They sat in silence for a moment, concentrating on eating their dessert. Swain finished first, licking the spoon clean with a pleasure that was almost erotic. Then he set the implement on his empty plate and looked at her, his blue eyes gleaming in the semidarkness.